


Beautiful Dreamer

by MrProphet



Series: Dreamcatcher [1]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 15:11:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10744227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	Beautiful Dreamer

_Kelowna_

Jonas Quinn walked through the streets of Kelowna's capital city. His heart felt numb, stricken beyond reaction by the utter devastation that he saw around him. Where once the great, gleaming towers of a proud civilisation had stretched towards the sky, proclaiming the Kelownans' belief that it was their manifest destiny to rise from the surface of their world and walk some day among the stars, there stood now only charred and broken husks. The fires had gone out now, but in places the molten metal skeletons of cars and warehouses revealed that they must have burned hot and long.

Jonas wished that he could believe that one of his country's enemies had launched an attack on the city, but in his heart he knew the truth. There had been another accident in the naquadria labs, and this time there had been no Daniel Jackson to prevent the disaster. The Kelownan government had burned the heart out of their own country, and the fact that they must have been among the first to perish was small consolation.

There was no sound as Jonas turned along a familiar street. He had walked for hours to reach the outskirts of the city where the destruction was less total, but he had seen no-one. Once it had been lined with trees, but nothing remained of those; not even ashes. Halfway to the next junction stood the shattered remains of an old, red-brick building. A young woman had lived there once, a young woman for whom he had felt a great affection many years ago. Nothing lived there now, and yet he seemed unable to resist turning in his path and climbing the stairs to the burned and broken door.

Behind him, something moved. He turned, but was unable to trace the source of the shadow at the edge of his vision. He turned back to the apartment block, grasped the half-melted handle and tugged. The door broke into pieces which exploded into ash as they hit the floor. Jonas coughed and choked, backing up for a moment to let the ask settle.

Beyond the door he saw signs of burning, but surprisingly the walls remained largely intact.

It was madness, but he called out: "Alya!"

His voice echoed eerily in the silence. There was no response.

"Alya!"

"Jonas?"

He turned. The voice did not sound like Alya's; it was harsh and rasping, but who knew what time and living through this hell would have done to his senior school sweetheart. He took a step towards the figure standing in the shadows of a door. "Ally?"

"Jonas." She stepped forward, and Jonas recoiled in horror. Alya's face was a ruin, distorted by tumours and ravaged by fire. Her eyes gleamed with a feral hunger and she licked her lips as she staggered towards him.

"No!" he cried. "Stay back!"

"Why should she?"

Jonas spun around. "Doctor Keiran?" he asked, unbelieving. Like Alya, Jonas' one-time mentor had been ravaged by the flames and the fallout which had consumed their city.

"Why should she leave you be?" Keiran asked again. "You are the cause of all this!"

"What? No."

"You were supposed to stop this, Jonas," Alya accused.

"You were supposed to stop us going this far," Keiran added.

Jonas tried to back away from them, but they had him hemmed in, and more distorted figures were shuffling into the hallway behind him.

"You did this to us!" A woman said.

"You killed us all!"

"You ran away and left us to die!"

Hands grabbed at Jonas. He fought them off and dashed for the stairs. He climbed as fast as he could, but more of the pitiful revenants were emerging from the rooms on each landing, forcing him higher and higher. At last he reached the very top of the building. One door alone did not open, and Jonas threw himself through, slamming it shut behind him.

He stopped, staring in amazement. In the room was a girl, very young, pretty, blonde and green-eyed, wearing a white dress and quite untouched by the general malaise of Jonas' people.

"Who are you?" Jonas asked.

The girl smiled.

Behind Jonas the door splintered, and he was dragged from the room by the ravening, cannibal mob.

*

_Stargate Command_

Sam Carter knocked impatiently on the door of the VIP room. "Wake up, Jonas!" she shouted, not caring who in the corridor heard her. "Jonas! You're twenty minutes late for the briefing. General Hammond is not a happy man; Colonel O'Neill isn't best pleased either."

There was no reply.

"Jonas; if you're not out here in ten seconds, I'm coming in, whether you're decent or otherwise. One," she began. "Two, three, four, five...Damnit; ten!"

Sam opened the door of the room and went in. To her relief, Jonas was not in the middle of dressing. To her extreme annoyance, he seemed to be fast asleep still. His eyes were twitching wildly behind their lids.

"Jonas," she said. Then she leaned down, right by his ear and yelled: "Jonas!"

He made no response, and now annoyance gave way to concern. Sam shook her friend by the shoulder, pinched his arm, even took a glass of water from beside his bed and threw it in his face. At last, informal methods exhausted, she picked up the phone from beside his bed.

"Infirmary," she said. "Medical emergency,  VIP quarters."

 

Janet Fraiser faced General Hammond and spoke in serious tones. "I'm afraid I have no idea what's wrong with him," she admitted. "He appears to be asleep; asleep and dreaming. The problem is, he's been dreaming for over five hours now. That...well, it shouldn't be possible, and I'm certain that it can't be healthy. The brain needs to pass through regular cycles of REM and non-REM activity during a night's sleep. Without those cycles it would be as though you had not slept at all." She sighed. "Of course it's all pretty academic until he wakes up at all, but if he stays too long in this state it could have a serious impact on his mental functions."

"What sort of thing are we talking about?"

Janet shrugged, helplessly. "Blackouts, balance problems, hallucinations, ongoing fatigue. To be honest I just don't know, Sir; to the best of my knowledge this has never happened before."

"Well, what can we do?" General Hammond asked.

"I'm afraid I don't know," Janet admitted. "I'll keep looking for a cause, but I may need to call in expert help on this one."

"Do what you can," Hammond said. "If you get me a list of the best specialists in this field, I'll have them vetted by the Office of Special Investigations so that we can have someone ready to call."

"Yes, Sir," Janet agreed.

*

After Jonas had been taken to the infirmary, SG-1's mission was handed over to SG-7 while the rest of the team were checked for comparable symptoms. Sam sat at Jonas' bedside, talking to him; Janet had not been sure if this would help, but she said that it could nor hurt. When Sam began to grow tired, Teal'c took over from her. He did not speak so much during his vigil, but he laid his hand on Jonas' shoulder and kept it there.

Jack refused to take a turn, and was actually quite scathing of their efforts. "He'll come round or not," he insisted, tersely. "We won't make much difference to that."

After a few hours, Teal'c was disturbed by the arrival of the young archaeological researcher, Louise Stillwell, who asked if she could take a turn sitting with Jonas. Teal'c did not want to abandon his watch, but the need in the girl's eyes moved him and he surrendered his post for her sake. It was almost midnight when Jack entered the infirmary and saw Louise slumped, half-asleep, with Jonas' hand clasped in her own.

"Hey," he said, shaking her gently by the shoulder.

"Huh?" She looked up, bleary-eyed and hoarse-voiced. "Oh; hello, Colonel O'Neill."

"Jack poured her a glass of water and waited while she drank. "Any change?"

"Not a flicker," the girl replied.

"Go and get some sleep," he said.

"I'm alright, Colonel."

"That's an order."

"I'm a civilian," she reminded him.

"You're still an Air Force employee, Miss Stillwell, and you still need to sleep. Don't worry about Jonas getting lonely; I'll stay with him." He grinned wryly. "Not that it's quite the same thing."

Louise looked surprised. "Oh. I...I heard that you thought that sitting with him was silly."

Jack averted his gaze from hers, looking at Jonas' comatose form instead. "I just...The last time we did this it was Daniel lying there." He gave a short, harsh chuckle. "I _so_ don't want to go through that again. Not when I was just starting to get used to our new geek." He winced. "Sorry."

"For what?"

"The...geek thing?"

"Why?" Louise asked, in genuine confusion.

"Never mind."

Louise gave a bittersweet smile. "So, he's starting to grow on you?"

"Like athlete's foot," Jack agreed.

"Maybe you could tell him that. It might help."

Jack did his best to look dismissive of that idea. "Go on; you take off and get some sleep."

Jack waited until she was gone, then sat down beside Jonas and rested his head on his hands. "Nice girl you've got there, Jonas. Hope I'm not too big of a come-down after that. You know I'm going to have to find another new geek if anything happens to you, don't you?" he asked. "And if SG-1 ends up stuck with some Russian egg-head because you can't be bothered to get out of bed...Well; just so you know, if you don't wake up I'm going to kill you."

He sat in silence for a while, until his head started to nod. It did not seem important to stay awake, so Jack let himself drift into sleep.

*

_Abydos_

Jack ran from the pyramid of Ra. At the base of the ramp the last of his men, aided by the people of Abydos, had defeated the warriors of the self-styled sun god. Above him, the pyramid-shaped vessel of Ra was rising from its landing platform.

"You're alive!" he exclaimed, staring at Kawalsky and Ferretti in amazement. "I thought...Oh, God! The bomb."

Jack turned and charged back into the cavernous structure. He ran through the columned hall, down the ramp towards the Gateroom. He leaped forward, stretched out and gripped the timer circuit which activated the bomb. He pulled it out...and the timer kept going.

"Oh no," he said.

The world turned white.

Jack's vision cleared. Ra's champion, Anubis, lay dead at his feet; headless. Sha're, still dead from the plasma burn to her gut, lay within the circumference of the transport rings. There was no sign of Daniel.

Jack's face set into a deathly grimace. That was it, then. There was nothing left for him. Everyone he cared about was dead – his son, the boy, Skaara, his men, his friends – and there was nothing left for him but to die. He turned and ran up the ramp towards the door of the pyramid.

Jack ran from the pyramid of Ra. At the base of the ramp the last of his men and the villagers of Abydos had defeated the warriors of the self-styled sun god. Above him, the pyramid-shaped vessel of Ra was rising from its landing platform.

Just for a moment, he was sure that he saw a face that did not belong among the Abydonian villagers. A fair-skinned, fair-haired girl in a white dress, green eyes glittering as she looked at him.

Jack shook off his confusion as Kawalsky started towards him. "You're alive!" he exclaimed. "Oh, God! The bomb."

*

_Stargate Command_

In the morning, Janet came into the infirmary and went straight to check on Jonas. She smiled as she saw Jack folded in sleep at the Kelownan's side.

"Wake up, Colonel," she said, touching his shoulder. "I need to get to my patient." Her only answer was silence. "Colonel."

She shook Jack by the shoulder and he fell backwards, to stretch out full-length on the floor of the infirmary.

*

"I'm stumped!" Janet declared, throwing her hands up in frustration. "There's nothing here. No virus, no bacterium, no nanites, fungi or spores. No infection of any kind, so how can Colonel O'Neill have been affected by Mr Quinn's coma?"

Dr Bradley, her chief pharmacologist, smiled wanly. "Are you asking me, or just thinking out loud?"

Janet shook her head. "If you have any ideas, Ted, I'd be glad to hear them."

"Sorry, Janet," Bradley replied. "I can't find a trace of foreign drugs in their blood work or any other samples. I've sent off DNA samples as well, but to be honest I'm grasping at straws."

Janet sighed and leaned heavily on the lab bench. "Alright," she said. "Let's go back to basics. It looks like they were both falling asleep when it happened." Suddenly, a titanic yawn escaped her. "Speaking of which."

"Speaking of which..." Bradley tapped his watch. "You asked me to remind you."

"Sure; thanks Ted."

Janet left the lab and went to her office. She picked up the phone and hit the speed dial button to call her own house.

"Mom?"

"Hi, Sweetie," Janet began, but suddenly she realised that Cassandra's voice was not coming from the phone but from her office door. She looked up and to her alarm she saw her daughter leaning weakly on the doorframe.

"Cassie?"

"I feel sick, Mom," Cassandra moaned. "I'm so sleepy. I..." Cassandra pitched forward.

Janet leaped up and ran to Cassandra's side. "Cassie!" she yelled, gripped by desperate fear. She laid a hand on the side of Cassie's neck; there was no pulse. "No," she moaned. "No, no, no!" Desperately she bent over her daughter and began CPR. "Come on, baby; come on."

"Janet?"

"Prep for crash!" Janet ordered Bradley. She looked up briefly and saw him staring blankly at her. "Prep it!" she yelled, infuriated by his calm expression. Something moved behind him, and Janet saw a young girl crossing the infirmary; no more than eight years old, blonde, wearing a white dress.

Forcing all else from her mind, Janet bent over Cassandra.

"Janet."

Janet looked up again. Now Dr Bradley looked concerned. "What are you...?" Janet broke off. She was sitting at the desk, her phone lying beside her. Cassandra's voice came tinny and worried from the handset.

"Sweetie?" Janet asked, picking up the phone.

"Jeez, Mom; give a girl a heart attack."

"I'm sorry, Cassie. I just wanted you to know I'd be late home."

"Wow; there's a surprise," Cassie replied, forcing herself to sound relaxed so as to hide her discomfort at Janet's odd behaviour. "Don't worry, I know the drill."

"Good girl," Janet said. "And Cassie; are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, Mom," the girl replied, baffled.

"That's good." Janet hung up and looked at Bradley. "What just happened, Ted?"

Bradley shrugged. "You fell asleep. Weird thing; it looked like you were going straight into REM."

Janet nodded, then picked up the phone again, letting it connect to the internal switchboard. "Dr Fraiser for General Hammond's office," she said.

_*_

"Whatever is causing these attacks, I think I almost fell under its influence," Janet explained to the group in the briefing room. General Hammond had called on the remaining members of SG-1 and Dr Bradley was also present.

"Fortunately for me, Dr Bradley was able to snap me out of it," Janet went on, "but I saw enough to get an idea of what is happening in the minds of the victims. I think they are trapped in some kind of recursive or otherwise interminable dream. Whatever is causing it, they've become trapped in those dreams. They can't wake up because their brainwave patterns are stuck in REM sleep. Even if we could somehow wake them they would probably still be held in the grip of sleep paralysis and unable to react to the real world."

"So what's causing it?" Sam asked.

"I still have no idea, but I'm not sure it's internal. I think this effect may be being imposed from without."

"Some kind of...psychic phenomenon?" Hammond asked.

"Well, I'm still a sceptic on parapsychological matters, but we've all seen that there are technologies and evolutionary adaptations which allow for such phenomena to exist within the realms of science."

Hammond nodded. "What makes you so sure that's what we're dealing with here?"

"There was an element in my dream that just didn't fit," Janet explained.

"A girl," Teal'c said, fixing her with his dark eyes. "In a white dress."

"That's right," Janet replied, surprised.

"Teal'c?" Sam asked.

"I have seen such a girl during my kelno'reem," Teal'c explained. "As you know, I am ordinarily in complete control of the images I perceive in such a state, but of late I have been seeing a girl that I do not know. It has disturbed my meditations somewhat. I have been tired of late; I had considered the possibility of supplementing my kelno'reem with some hours of regular sleep each night. This is sometimes needed when the symbiote itself has suffered some injury or infection."

"I wouldn't recommend that just now," Janet replied. "I spoke to Louise Stillwell. She told me that she almost fell asleep at Jonas' bedside. Before Colonel O'Neill woke her up, she dreamed about the same girl."

"Do you think that proximity to one of the affected persons is a factor?" Sam asked.

"For all I know. I recommend that when we need to sleep we do so away from the patients, anyway. I've already moved Mr Quinn and Colonel O'Neill to the isolation lab. Other than that...I think it's time to call in help," she admitted, "but I think we've hit the wall for human medical science."

"The Tok'ra and the Asgard both have a more detailed understanding of neurology," Sam suggested.

"Agreed," Hammond said. "Major Carter, you and Teal'c will proceed to K'tau at the earliest opportunity and contact the Asgard. I'll send Miss Rede with a message to the Tok'ra. Let's just hope one of them can spare someone to help us. In the meantime, I suggest you go home and get some sleep, Dr Fraiser. We'll need you on top form when and if our help arrives."

"Perhaps I can be of assistance in divining the source of these attacks," Teal'c suggested. "If someone were to watch over me, I might be able to confront this girl within my state of kelno'reem."

"Well, I can do that," Dr Bradley offered. "If you think it's a good idea."

Hammond look at Teal'c, who nodded.

"Very well, Teal'c. Major, if you're alright tackling the Asgard alone."

"Yes, Sir."

"Then you'll leave as soon as you're ready," the General declared. "I get the feeling we don't have time to waste."

*

Teal'c returned to his room and began lighting his candles. Shortly afterwards, Dr Bradley arrived with a small, battery-operated EEG.

"Are you okay with this?" Bradley asked, attaching electrodes to the Jaffa's head. "I know you don't know me so well..."

"Dr Fraiser speaks highly of your ability and integrity," Teal'c said. "That is enough for me."

"Thanks."

Teal'c inclined his head, gravely. "I should be able to leave the state of kelno'reem at any time," he explained. "However, things are not as they usually are."

"If your brainwaves begin to slip into REM sleep patterns, I'll wake you up at once," Bradley promised. He switched on his monitors and began recording the EEG readings. "Of course, this is the first time anyone's ever monitored a Jaffa's brain activity during kelno'reem. It's quite exciting really."

Teal'c gave the doctor a hard stare.

"Not that that's important." Dr Bradley turned and focused very hard on the monitors. "When you're ready."

Teal'c closed his eyes, cleared his mind, and slipped into kelno'reem.

*

_The Kresh'ta Camps, Chulak_

Teal'c stood outside his mother's tent, staring at the flap which hung closed over the entrance. He turned away and saw the girl standing behind him.

"Why do you try to show me things that would hurt me?" he asked.

The girl's eyes narrowed in concentration, as though his words puzzled her greatly.

"Do you understand me?" Teal'c took a step toward the girl, crouched down in front of her and laid a hand on her shoulder.

The girl looked even more startled, but then she grinned, suddenly.

A figure rose up behind the girl; the shape of a young woman, her face torn by the beak of a crow. Three men stood behind her; all four had plasma burns on their bodies.

Teal'c rose up and stepped back. "No," he said. He turned away and saw another group of dead men and women moving towards him.

"Teal'c!" Dr Bradley's voice sounded distant.

Teal'c tried to turn toward the voice, but he could not tell where it was coming from. Hands grabbed at him, spinning him around to face the ravaged visage of Nim'auh; the first woman to die by his hand.

"Teal'c," she dead woman whispered. Or was it Dr Bradley calling?

"You are not real," Teal'c insisted, trying to pull away from them, but the victims of his service to Apophis were many and he was surrounded by the press. "No!" he cried, as he was pulled down beneath the mass of dead flesh.

*

"Teal'c!" Dr Bradley took a huge risk and slapped Teal'c across the face. There was no response; on the monitors the Jaffa's brainwaves remained in the patterns of REM sleep. But that was not the worst of it. The worst was that Teal'c's heart had stopped beating.

*

Sam returned through the Gate in an upbeat mood. While the Asgard could not spare any of their own number from the war against the Replicators, Earth's long-time ally Freyja had sent her adopted daughter, Gersemi. The young human was a brilliant technician and she had brought an array of Asgard neural monitoring equipment. Since the Asgard were able to move their minds intact from one body to another, Sam was confident that they could solve this problem.

"Miss Gersemi," Hammond greeted the slim, dark-haired girl gratefully.

"Sir?" Sam asked, sensing the increase in her commander's anxiety.

"Teal'c appears to be trapped in a state of deep kelno'reem," Hammond explained. "His brain activity is high, but Dr Bradley had to put him on life support to keep his body alive."

"What? How? Dr Bradley was supposed to wake him if he began to slip into the same state as Colonel O'Neill and Jonas." Sam's eyes flashed dangerously.

"It seems that Teal'c didn't slip so much as plummet," Hammond explained, calmly. "He went directly from regular, relaxed thought to a state of REM sleep. Dr Bradley was unable to wake him, and it's a tribute to his calm head that he managed to get Teal'c to the infirmary and onto life support before his body died. There's no sign of brain damage," Hammond added, reassuringly. "His symbiote seems to have kept his brain oxygenated for a few minutes after his circulation stopped."

"But what is happening?" Sam demanded, angrily.

"We don't know," Hammond admitted.

"Well," Gersemi interrupted, sensing the tension rising between the two officers. "Perhaps I can help to shed some light on this."

"Thank you for your help," Hammond agreed. "Major Carter will take you to the infirmary. Shallan-Jena of the Tok'ra is already there."

*

In the infirmary, Teal'c now lay beside Jack and Jonas, wired to a bank of machines and with a breathing tube forced down his throat. Above each man was a screen, on which the scenes from their dreams played out. Each man had a Tok'ra memory device attached to his temple and a slender, pixie-faced blonde woman was attaching a delicate web of silver and turquoise to the Colonel's head.

"Is that her then?" Gersemi asked, looking at the screens. In each dreamscape, the same girl was visible. "She's just a child."

"She's the only constant between the three dreams," Shallan replied. She proffered her Tok'ra tablet computer to Sam. Her team mates' brainwaves were displayed as a trio of three dimensional wave-forms, fluctuating within a pale blue band and rarely spiking into a red zone.

"You can see from the brainwave patterns being recorded by the memory devices that Dr Fraiser's supposition was correct. Their brains have been trapped in a recursive dream cycle; unless we can find a way of breaking the cycle their minds won't be able to release themselves from the pattern of REM sleep. They will never wake up, and before long their brains will be physiologically unable to function in a waking state."

"Is there anything we can do?" Sam asked.

"I don't know," Shallan replied. "Dr Bradley and I have set up a neural stimulator to try and interrupt the cycle in Colonel O'Neill's mind. I was just about to activate it."

Sam nodded. "Do it," she ordered.

Shallan went back to Jack's bedside and raised her hand over his head. There was a fine-wired ribbon device wrapped around her fingers, but the Tok'ra memories in Sam's head recognised that it was not a weapon but a technical device, used for remote manipulation of sensitive equipment.

The Tok'ra looked up and Jena, her symbiote, spoke. "Be mindful of the readings," she said. "If the amplitude of the brainwaves begins to stray regularly into the red, you must alert me and I shall shut off the stimulator."

"I understand," Sam assured her.

The Tok'ra nodded her head. She held her hand over Jack's head; the tiny crystals studding the palm of her ribbon device sparkled and the lights glinted off the silver web. The brainwaves changed, the rapid activity settling into a slower, steadier rhythm as the stimulator's energies cancelled out those which were creating the state of rapid eye movement which gripped Jack's brain. As the delta waves of deep sleep took hold, Shallan moved her hand slightly and the Colonel's brain began the shift towards the alpha waves associated with waking thought.

Sam turned to look at the screen which showed Jack's dream. As the dream-state began to dissolve, random images flashed up across the walls of the pyramid on Abydos. Briefly, she and Teal'c were standing among the crowd outside, then the pyramid became the temple of Napoleon at the other Giza. Jaffa helms appeared and disappeared. One of the Abydonian boys became Jack's son, Charlie, then the whole crowd was a class full of children. Sam recognised Cassandra's grade school class, although Charlie was also among them.

And then the images all began to fade. All but the girl, who looked up and out of the screen. Suddenly, Sam felt as though the green eyes were staring out at _her_.

The pretty face scrunched up in intense concentration, and the dream returned, the images crystallising before Sam's eyes. The brainwaves fell back into REM sleep, but now the peaks and troughs were regularly snapping out beyond the bounds of the safety limit. Jack's eyes were flickering wildly now, his hands twitching and shuddering.

"Stop!" Sam told the Tok'ra.

"I'm almost there," Jena replied. The images on the screen blurred and focused and blurred again.

"You're killing him!"

At once, Shallan's hand jerked up and closed. The lights vanished. The dream was back at once, as though it had never been interrupted. The girl smiled, apparently satisfied. The brainwaves were steady and stable.

"Well, that settles that," Sam said. "There's an intelligence behind this, and that girl is part of it."

"Indeed," Gersemi agreed. She had opened the little case she had brought with her and was setting up her scanning equipment.

With a sigh, Shallan began to remove the neural stimulator from Jack and the Tok'ra's fingers lingered caressingly on Jack's skin. Sam watched, warily. She had suspected for a while that Shallan harboured complicated emotions for the man who had rescued her from Baal's service and this seemed to prove it. That could not easily be altered, but after what he had gone through with the Tok'ra, Jack would not want one of them – not even Shallan, for whom he had more time than he did for most of the breed – touching him like that while he was unconscious.

"Hmm," Gersemi mused. "Each of the minds is being subjected to a regulated psychometric energy field," she said.

"Psychometric?" Sam asked.

Shallan's confusion was as great, but stemmed from a different source. "Regulated?"

"Remote mental stimulation, " Gersemi explained, "such as that which Shallan attempted, but achieved at a greater range. The modulation of the energy levels is too regular to be organic in origin. Not even the Asgard have such measured brainwave patterns; the source must be artificial, or at least artificially regulated and amplified. However, wherever the signal is being generated from, the field is _controlled_ by a living mind."

"Whose mind?"

"Well, hers," Gersemi suggested. "Look; the girl is in all three dreams, standing in exactly the same pose. She's the constant factor; she's in all three dreams simultaneously."

"Can you locate the source?" Sam asked.

"Not easily," Gersemi replied. "I'll need access to a large, space-based receiver."

"General Hammond may be able to get you clearance to retask a surveillance satellite; not that we officially have any in orbit above the United States." Sam was excited. Now there was an enemy; someone tangible that she could track and find and – if at all possible – hurt.

"I should warn you though," Gersemi said. "We'll need to find a way to make her release her grip on their dreams from within. If we suddenly shut down the connection the shock could kill them."

"Great," Sam sighed. "Alright, Gersemi. I'll speak to General Hammond; you find me a way to break that hold."

"Oh, I think I already know a way to do that," Gersemi assured her. "I just don't think you're going to like it."

_*_

There was an air of tension in the Gateroom as another new arrival emerged from the event horizon. Stargate Command had seen a lot of people pass through in the past eight years, but to date only three of them had been convicted traitors.

Now the number was four, and unlike the others, this one was coming back to the SGC.

"General Hammond," Major Chris Newman saluted the man standing before him, flanked by heavily-armed Security Force personnel. The young officer was dressed casually in a black t-shirt and combat trousers. He was unarmed, but carried a small, wooden box.

"Major Newman." Hammond scowled, furiously. "At the request of High Commander Freyja you will be allowed to take that... _thing_ to Gersemi, unmolested, and remain to assist her. Step one foot out of line and you _will_ spend the rest of your life in a _very_ secure prison."

"I understand, General Hammond," Newman agreed, placidly.

"These gentlemen will escort you to the infirmary," Hammond said, gesturing at a group of six SFs.

"All for little me?" Newman asked. "I'm flattered."

Hammond did not smile.

 

Newman was escorted to the infirmary and the SFs took up posts at the door. "Hello, Gersemi. Hello, Sam," he added, a trace of shyness entering his cocky tones.

"Hello, Chris," Sam replied.

"Are they all for you, Chris?" Gersemi asked, pointing at the guards.

"Apparently so," Newman replied. "General Hammond is worried that someone might decide to pass arbitrary sentence on me. I suppose he has a fair point." He rubbed the spiderweb of pale scar tissue on his throat. "I may consider myself a new man, but I don't honestly know how US law regards resurrection."

"Is that...it?" Sam asked, looking at the box as though it contained a serpent that were waiting to bite her.

"Yes," Newman agreed. "Gersemi asked me to bring it and I have, but I don't have to like it."

"It's the only way," Gersemi assured him.

"Then I'll do it," Newman insisted.

"Chris," Sam sighed. "You don't need to protect me."

"Actually, I think I do. Look, Sam; I've died once already. Everything else is borrowed time. I consider myself a great deal more expendable than you are; I'll bet I can get a lot of support from our friends in the corridor on that front."

"Well not from me!" Gersemi protested, plaintively.

Sam winced. This infirmary was becoming altogether too overwrought. "Look, Chris," she said, calmly, trying to bring everyone back to the level of rational debate. "I know these men better than anyone. That probably gives me a considerable edge when stepping into their dreams."

"Anyway," Gersemi went on. "Neither of us can do this. Our nanites would never allow such a foreign body to remain within our systems."

"Damnit," Newman growled.

"Just give me the device, Chris," Gersemi sighed. " I need to calibrate the interface."

"Run me through how this is going to work again," Sam said.

"I'm going to use my computer's transceiver to interface with the psychometric carrier wave. If I try to jam the signal it might just fry everyone's brains, but if we can connect your mind to the wave, then you can interact with the girl; reason with her, or possibly even fight her somehow."

"And you'll be connecting my mind with..."

"With the brain spike which Anubis implanted in the Supreme Commander's head," Newman confirmed.

"The neural probe is the only technology we have access to which will allow us to interface your mind with a computer without downloading it completely. The download would probably be safer, but I would not be able to restore you to your own body. Of course, we only partially understand the technology of the probe."

"What if I get trapped?" Sam asked.

"You won't be dreaming," Gersemi assured her. "With the probe and the computer between you and the psychometric field, I will be able to pull you out of the dreamtime at any time, in perfect safety. We should be able to follow your progress on the monitors; if you seem to be in trouble we'll cut the connection."

"You can signal us if you want to come out," Newman added.

"That's right," Gersemi agreed. "If you focus on the image of the spike, we'll pull you out at once."

"Great," Sam said. "Alright, Gersemi. Plug me in."

Sam lay down alongside her team mates. Gersemi placed a runestone on Sam's forehead and it held there as though glued. Newman took Sam's arm and wrapped a restraining strap around her wrist.

"What are you doing?" Sam demanded.

"You won't be asleep," Newman explained. "Since you won't be in the grip of sleep paralysis, we need to restrain you."

"Don't you have a way of inducing sleep paralysis?"

Newman flashed a devilish grin. "Where's the fun in that?"

Carter laughed, silently thanking him for not being too serious. If he had started being sombre and funereal, she might have lost her nerve. "Oo-kay."

"Right," Gersemi interrupted, impatiently. She opened the wooden box and lifted out the small, intricately carved metal ball that would be implanted in Sam's brain.

"Now; you're sure this is safe?" Sam asked.

"More or less," Gersemi agreed. She ran a delicate finger across the carvings. There was a flash of light and a moment later the probe had vanished. Sam felt a pressure building like a migraine in her head.

"Oh, God," she gasped.

"Are you alright?" Newman asked, concerned.

"No," she replied. "But they'd do the same for me."

He squeezed her hand, tightly. "Are you seeing anyone?" he asked.

"I...No," she admitted, taken aback by the question.

"Well; good luck, Major Carter." Newman leaned down and kissed her gently on the lips.

Sam opened her mouth to say something in response, but before she could gather her thoughts, Gersemi said: "Activating interface."

A stabbing pain lanced through Sam's head and darkness exploded behind her eyes.

*

"Ow!" Sam snarled. "That _hurts_!" She clutched at her head, but almost as soon as she had registered it, the pain was subsiding. In a few moments there was nothing left but a slight ache. She looked up. She was surrounded by darkness, with just a faint light coming from behind her.

Sam turned and saw on her right a blitzed city street where mutated, decaying zombies dragged at the struggling form of Jonas. Straight ahead, Jack was running once more for the bomb which he could not deactivate. On her left, Teal'c tried repeatedly to battle free of the ghosts which surrounded him. Every few moments the Jaffa would pull himself almost to the edge of the pack, but then the crowd would flow forward and encircle him once more.

"He's different."

Sam jumped half out of her skin as the girl appeared at her shoulder.

"I think Cassidy is cheating, actually, but I've still got her beaten. He was difficult to crack; took me five tries, but I think I've got him now. Unless Cassidy tries that thing she did with the other one, whatever it was. Now that _wasn't_ fair."

"Wasn't fair!"

"No!" The girl seemed delighted that Sam understood. "I spent a long time building that scenario with the pyramid, and she just ripped it down. He was a tough one as well, but it's just a matter of finding the right place to push. There...there was something else as well but...I didn't like that." Her face grew dark and sad. "That poor little boy. I don't think Cassidy was very nice to put that in there. If she doesn't think she can beat me she shouldn't play; she shouldn't try to upset me."

"Upset...?" Sam gathered her wits and rounded on the girl. "You are _hurting my friends_!"

The girl looked shocked for a moment, then she brightened up. She laughed. "You're funny!" she declared. "But don't be silly; you know it's just a game. They're not _real_."

"Huh?"

"Not like you and me and Cassidy."

Sam stepped back, her head spinning. "Alright," she said, taking a deep breath. "Let's start this over again. I'm Sam." She held out her hand.

The girl accepted the hand and shook it. "Hello, Sam," she said. "I'm Michelle."

*

"Something's happened," Gersemi noted. "Her brainwaves have changed; fallen into the same pattern as the carrier wave."

"She's talking to the girl," Newman said, watching the memory screens instead of the monitors. I can see her in the background of the dreams."

"I don't like it. Her mind is becoming too closely linked to the girl's and too fast. We need to bring her out; maybe program a second buffer and then..."

Gersemi reached out for the master switch she had set up on her PDA, but Newman stood quickly and caught her hand before she touched it. She almost flinched at the contact, and her face flamed red.

"Wait," he said, apparently oblivious to her embarrassment. "Give her some time."

He released Gersemi's hand but stayed standing very close to her. After a long moment, she reluctantly drew away from him. "It could be dangerous," she warned. "She could get hurt."

Newman's eye twitched at the thought, but he stayed firm. "Trust her, Ger."

"Alright," she agreed. "If you say so."

"Trust her."

*

"What are you doing here, Michelle?" Sam demanded.

"Playing," the girl replied. "What else do you do with a game?"

"A game?"

Michelle nodded. "This is Cassidy's game room," she explained. "Did you just wander in? She won't like that."

"She won't mind," Sam lied. "Cassidy knows I'm here. I'm...here to ask you about the games. Will you tell me about them?"

"Okay," Michelle agreed, brightly. She slipped her hand into Sam's and led her back towards where Teal'c was fighting his hopeless struggle. "I come in here to play games. Cassidy makes them for me, because I can't go out."

"You can't go out?"

"Didn't Cassidy tell you? That's why she keeps me in the Cassasphere. I have the day room and the music room and the library, but this is where she makes the games for me. They're always puzzles, but they're always different. You see, there's a landscape and people in it. I have to find a very special person and when I know who they are I have to find images and things in the landscape which I can use to trap and hold them until Cassidy gives in and tells me to stop." She nodded towards Teal'c. "This one was tough. I couldn't read him like I usually can, and there weren't many images in that puzzle at all." She grinned. "But I cracked it in the end."

She looked up at Sam, eyes shining with a desire for approval.

"It's...obscene!" Sam exclaimed. "You're hurting people; don't you realise that?"

"But not _real_ people. I do know the difference, Sam."

"What difference?"

"Well _you're_ real," Michelle said. "I can't read you, see; that means you must be a real person who's plugged into the Cassasphere."

Suddenly it became clear to Sam. Michelle was not an image of a child projected by a malevolent force. She _was_ a child, and this whole, monstrous enterprise was without a shred of malice on her part. She was just playing, with no idea that her 'toys' had lives and feelings.

"What is the Cassasphere?" Sam had to ask, although she knew she would not like the answer.

"All this," Michelle explained, gesturing around them. "Cassidy made it for me when I got sick. You see, I can read the people in it. They all come with their own landscapes and stuff to. You just...popped in; the way Cassidy does."

"And who is Cassidy?"

Michelle looked suspicious. "You said you knew Cassidy. What are you...?" A huge grin split her face. "Wait! You're trying to confuse me. You're here to _play_ aren't you?"

"What?"

Michelle took a step away from Sam. The air around the girl's hand rippled and a moment later she holding a dangerous looking sword.

"Where did you get that?" Sam demanded.

Michelle whirled the sword in a menacing manner, but made no move to advance on Sam.

"Um...Michelle."

"I'm ready," Michelle assured her. "Let's play!"

Sam half expected the girl to step up swinging, but instead she just stood there, frowning in concentration, the sword looping back and forth like a meditative focus.

"What are you...?" Hands grabbed at Sam's arms; clammy, clinging hands. She struggled free and turned, and stared into the face of one of Jonas' mutant zombies.

*

"Get her out!" Newman demanded.

"No," Gersemi replied, firmly.

"Damn you, Ger! Get her out of there!" Newman tried to reach the PDA but Gersemi backed away and hid the device behind her back.

"No," she repeated, calmly. "She's doing it. The energy field around the other three is breaking down."

"That lunatic girl is going to kill her!"

"She's in no danger; remember. It's all in her mind and we can pull her out at any time. She can't die from anything in there."

"Gersemi..."

"You're reacting emotionally," Gersemi said. "Think; reason; then _trust_ her, Chris. Like you told me."

"Damnit," Newman snarled. He turned to stalk from the infirmary, but the guards blocked his way. Unwillingly, he returned his gaze to the screens. Gersemi kept half an eye on her monitors, but her gaze kept straying to Newman's pensive figure.

_*_

Jonas' zombies and Teal'c's ghosts were easy enough to evade. The former were slow and ponderous – making Sam wonder if Jonas had managed to find time for an introduction to Earth monster movies – while the latter were essentially insubstantial. Sam moved around them and grabbed hold of Michelle.

"Stop this!" she demanded. "Michelle...!"

A wave of violent heat washed over Sam's back. She collapsed, momentarily overcome with pain, and as she struggled up the zombies clutched at her. She fought bitterly, clawing at the clammy, yielding flesh of her malformed assailants. Bile rose in her throat, but she forced it down, telling herself that this was not real. There were no zombies.

The grasping hands loosened their grip and Sam pulled away from them. For a moment she was on top of the situation, but then another heatwave – the blast from Jack's bomb – struck her and she staggered again. She tried to fix in her mind that this was just a dream as well, but while she could easily deny the existence of a horde of zombies, explosions lay too solidly within her experience. A third blast of heat sapped her strength so much that the zombies were able to hold her.

"Aw!" Michelle sounded deeply disappointed. "That was _rubbish_ , Sam! You didn't hardly fight back at all!"

The zombies were gone. Sam was completely unhurt but she was afraid.

"You let me go," she said. "I thought the aim was to hold me?"

Michelle frowned. "But I don't want to hurt you, Sam."

"Why not?"

"Because...it would be wrong," Michelle replied. "You can't go around hurting people."

"But what about my friends!"

"Oh, stop it!" Michelle exclaimed. "I don't like those games; they mess with my head. It's like that nasty trick with the boy that Cassidy played on me."

It was Sam's turn to frown in confusion and concern. "What boy? You mentioned him before, right?"

"It was in the game with the old man," Michelle replied; it took a moment for Sam to realise that the girl was talking about Jack. "I found this image to trap him, but there was another, easier trap with a boy who kept dying; over and over again. I didn't like that one," Michelle admitted, sounding far more subdued. "I don't know why Cassidy would send me something like that."

"Where is she?" Same asked. "I...I haven't seen her recently."

"She often goes away when I'm playing," Michelle replied. "She'll be back."

"You don't play the games while she's here?"

"Not usually. I play with Cassidy instead."

"Well...I'm here," Sam said. "Why don't you leave these...games and play with me."

Michelle looked a little sheepish. "You don't play very well," she replied. "You're real, but you don't fight well and you don't hardly bend the Cassasphere at all."

"Bend...?"

"You know." Michelle held out her hand. _Something_ rippled in her palm, and a small flower appeared. "Didn't Cassidy explain? This is all make-believe, you see. The people in the games can't change stuff, but because we're real _we_ can make believe and have it all come true."

"Of course," Sam realised. She tried to picture how she might go about reshaping the fabric of this 'Cassasphere', but she had no real clue. She began to feel desperate, unable to think of any other way that she might be able to release her friends from their dreams.

Sam's eyes snapped wide. "Of course!" she said again. "This, the Cassasphere, is a _dream_!"

"Sam?"

Sam's mouth slowly curved into a smile. It was seven years since curiosity and boredom had led her to a short course in lucid dreaming at the community centre, but hopefully that would stand her in reasonably good stead in this waking dream. She tried to summon one of the zombies to attack Michelle, but nothing happened except that Sam felt a little silly.

"What are you doing, Sam?"

Sam looked hard at Michelle, trying to fathom what was missing. The sword was still in her hand, although she had ceased its motion when Sam was beaten. Perhaps the blade was a focus of some kind, Sam realised; a tool which the girl used in some way to control her world. That seemed a good place to start; to see if she could make herself a similar, metaphorical magic wand.

She held out her hand and concentrated hard. Once more, nothing happened. _Damn it_ , she thought, angrily. _I can't summon up so much as a crude, Jungian psychological symbol, while a seven year old girl wields this whole world like a weapon with barely an effort._

At that moment, the light dawned. Her lucid dreaming instructor had told her that dreams would not be forced, they had to be coaxed gently along the desired path.

"Nice and easy," she told herself in a whisper. "Nice and..." The air rippled, and a long-handled socket wrench appeared in her hand. She was so surprised that she almost dropped the tool.

"Oh," Michelle gasped. "That's a bit better."

"So," Sam said. "Do you want to play again?"

In answer, Michelle began to sweep her sword meditatively to-and-fro. The blast of Jack's bomb washed over Sam, but this time she was prepared. A wall of energy rose up around her; the wave of heat hissed and sizzled harmlessly on the surface of the shield.

"Alright," Sam said. "My turn." She dug into her memory, searching for a means of attack which would incapacitate Michelle but which she would not flinch at using on a young child. She smiled as an idea came to her and she summoned forth a swirl of light which played hypnotically across her shield. The memory of the mesmerising light of P4X-347 was something that would never leave Sam, and now she made that memory her weapon.

Michelle was obviously taken aback by this approach, and before she could respond the lights had begun to work their effect on her mind. She half toppled forward, but at the last moment she recovered her senses. A cloud of smoke poured from her hands and obscured Sam's light show. Moments later the ground – such as it was – beneath Sam's feet split open, a gaping crevasse threatening to swallow her up.

Sam dived aside, of necessity sacrificing the defence of her immobile shield. This time, she chose to attack with something truly frightening. The edges of the crevasse seemed to shift as a horde of moving things scrabbled from the earth. On skittering feet they poured towards Michelle, raising their forelimbs and flapping their pseudo-wings in threat.

Michelle laughed in delight. "Funny!" she declared.

Sam was momentarily taken aback, but she supposed that it was true. If you did not know what they were, the Replicators _were_ sort of comical. She changed her tack, transforming the Replicators into the mobile steel restraints of the Gamekeeper's stasis pods on P7J-989. The binding cables wrapped around Michelle's limbs, holding her tightly.

"Do you give up?" Sam asked.

"Not yet!"

The blackness of the sky fragmented, a cloud of crows descending in a raucous mass. Sam sought for a counterattack, but nothing came to mind. Instead she opted for Michelle's tactic, and instead of struggling against the birds she went straight for the source. With a flash, the darkness of the dream world was broken by the lightning-blast of the orbital zat-weapon she had seen used by the Canon on Sokar's mediaeval breeder world.

Michelle cried out in pain – Sam winced at the sound – and the birds evaporated back into shadows. Michelle lay still in a pool of dim radiance; the fight was over.

Sam turned back to her friends and saw that – although still trapped – their desperation was lessened. After only a moment, in fact, Teal'c broke away from his tormentors. His vignette flickered and vanished; Teal'c too was gone, and Sam knew that he must have woken up. Sam saw what she would have to do, and she turned and walked towards Jonas. As she approached, she held out her wrench and willed the crowd of zombies to part. Jonas broke free, and a moment later he too was gone.

Last but not least, Sam went to Jack. She entered the pyramid with him, and when he uselessly tore out the timer circuit, she pulled open the panel and deactivated the bomb, breaking the Colonel from his cycle of perceived failure. He turned as though to speak to her, but before he could do so he too was gone. Nothing remained but darkness, and the dim light around Michelle's small form.

Unable to just leave her there, Sam walked over to the pool of light and crouched beside Michelle. She reached out to feel her pulse, but before she reached Michelle's skin, the girl's eyes flickered open.

*

Jack sat up, rubbing his eyes wearily.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," Janet welcomed him, taking his wrist to check his pulse. Jack looked around and saw Jonas rubbing his neck and Dr Bradley removing the tube from Teal'c's throat. The Jaffa did not look amused.

"Huh?" Jack asked.

"Alright, that's it," Newman said. "Pull her out."

"Newman?" Jack asked.

"I just did," Gersemi replied. "I've deactivated the implant but..."

"Gersemi?" Jack asked.

"Wait a moment." Gersemi worked her controls. With a flash, the brain spike transported itself back to her hand.

"What's that?" Jack asked.

Janet patted Jack's hand. "Best to go on faith at this point," she suggested. "We'll bring you up to speed later. Gersemi; what's happening to Sam?"

"It looks like the girl's still holding her in place," Gersemi replied.

"You said you could bring her out!" Newman snapped.

"Well...she must have fallen asleep while she was unconscious," Gersemi replied in a harassed tone. "Unless...Unless she's holding _herself_ in."

"Well get her out! Ger!"

"Hey!" Jack stood up, a little woozily. "Leave her alone, Newman. She's doing her best."

"But, Sam..."

"Let the lady work."

Newman sat back, frustrated. Gersemi gave Jack a grateful smile and turned back to her PDA.

"Just...hurry up," Jack added.

*

"Glad to see you're okay," Sam noted, straightening Michelle's hair.

"That was cool!" Michelle exclaimed. She tried to leap to her feet, but stopped and groaned in pain. "But – ow! – painful."

"Sorry."

"No! It was great! You play really well, Sam. I'm sorry I called you names."

"Look," Sam said. "Just promise me you won't play those other games ever again, Michelle. It's wrong."

Michelle laughed. "Look; you beat me fair and square. Don't worry; I won't sulk about it or go back to playing games I know I can win or anything." Her eyes danced. "I _have_ to come back and play you again."

"No; wait..."

"When I've got a little more practice, of course."

"Michelle; wait..."

"Oops. Gotta go now, Sam. Cassidy's calling." She smiled. "And I don't really believe that you're a friend of hers, but I forgive you. Toodle-oo!"

"Wait! Don't..."

*

"...just go!"

Janet, Gersemi, Newman and the rest of SG-1 all leaped back as Sam sprang upright.

"Well," Newman gasped. "That was dramatic."

*

SG-1 sat around in the commissary, dog tired.

"We've been asleep for two days," Jack complained. "How can we be so tired?"

Jonas grimaced. "Well, I don't know about you, but I've spent two days fighting the zombies of my nearest and dearest. I'm about ready for a week on leave."

"Major Carter," Teal'c said. "You seem troubled."

"I'm worried about Michelle," Sam admitted.

"I thought Gersemi traced the beam," Jonas said.

"She did," Sam replied. "They had troops all ready to move in, but the warehouse caught fire almost as soon as they got in. It looks like Michelle's minders realised they'd been located and torched the place. I guess that's why Cassidy called her out of the dreamscape."

"What happened to the strike force?" Jack asked.

"Two airmen were killed and three more hospitalised; all they found was the charred remains of a sensory deprivation tank and about six million dollars worth of supercomputer and advanced neural imaging equipment. They think they'll turn up a tunnel when they dig far enough through the ash, which means that somewhere out there is a little girl, living her life in an iso-tank and being used as a biological weapon of terror by this vile 'Cassidy'." She sighed. " _And_ she's spoiling for a rematch. With us. With me."

Jack shivered. "Maybe...Maybe we'll never see her again."

"No," Sam assured him. "She'll be back. I know it."

 


End file.
